Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"One way to measure just how tense U.S.-Israeli relations have become: Look at how prominent proxies for both sides are duking it out in public. By that standard, the friendship is cratering, with supporters and opponents of a White House-backed nuclear deal with Iran rhetorically at one another’s throats. A well-regarded Obama foreign policy surrogate with close White House ties, Colin Kahl, and the best-known media voice for pro-Israel forces in Washington, Josh Block, got into a nasty Twitter tangle over the weekend that laid bare how caustic the Iran debate has become between the two staunch allies. 'As usual, U don’t know what UR talking about & R advocating max alt[ernative] that’ll lead 2 war,' wrote Kahl, a top Pentagon official during Obama’s first term and the co-chairman of the president’s foreign policy board during his 2012 reelection campaign. 'There you go again - typical vile smear,' replied Block, a former spokesman for the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 'Hateful notion fm WH that supporters of talks 4 better terms R ‘warmongers’ & urge media,allies 2 smear critics as not acting 4 US interests.' 'Thanks Mr. Pot. Sincerely, Mr. Kettle,' Kahl countered later. The bitter showdown occurred just outside the veil of officialdom, where diplomatic conventions and the desire to keep intact the broad bipartisan coalition supportive of Israel dictate that formal spokespeople for the White House, the Israeli government and the largest pro-Israel groups carefully measure their on-the-record comments. The cause for the current fight: the Obama administration’s drive to strike an interim deal intended to halt and/or roll back Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a limited easing of sanctions on Tehran. Despite intense Israeli objections, such a pact was almost agreed to at international talks with the Iranians a couple of weeks ago — negotiations that are set to resume on Wednesday in Geneva. The new conflict comes in the wake of a series of pointed disagreements between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent years over issues like the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the U.S. response to the Arab Spring movement. 'It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,' said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations." (Politico)

"News Corp patriarch Rupert Murdoch plans to finalize the terms of his 'amicable' divorce negotiations with estranged wife Wendi Deng at a court hearing this morning, closing the curtain on a fourteen-year marriage. The 82-year-old Murdoch, who is reportedly dating his (also much younger) massage therapist already, 'surprised' Deng with divorce papers over the summer, citing a relationship that 'has broken down irretrievably.' But because he's worth over $13 billion, the hard part is splitting up the stuff. Deng and the couple's two young daughters, Grace, 12, and Chloe, 10, are expected to keep the family's Fifth Avenue penthouse, which was purchased for $44 million in 2005, a Manhattan record at the time. The triplex was previously owned by Laurance S. Rockefeller. She'll also get the Beijing house. According to Reuters, the settlement will not affect Murdoch’s now-split companies, because Deng 'does not hold a stake in family trust that controls News Corp and Fox. Grace and Chloe have stakes in the trust but they do not hold voting rights.' But leisure time is taking a hit: The New York Times says, 'The boat has been put up for sale.' Previous reports said Murdoch was looking to get rid of his 184-foot yacht, Rosehearty, for an asking price of $29.7 million. Let another man's mid-to-late-life crisis begin." (NYMag)

"Sheldon Adelson. Bigtime Vegas casino hotshot, Venetian Hotel CEO, billionaire, heavy supporter of Israel who vowed he’d spend $100 mil to elect Mitt. With hubby tucked away now, Ann Romney’s doing her thing. Made the Best Seller List with her new cookbook. Besides fingerlickin’ cherry pies, it’s summertime life on their New Hampshire Lake Winnipesaukee homestead (which I’ve seen from friends’ nearby property) and family stories ... To celebrate 'The Romney Family Table' book, to honor the Romneys, to have a party, Sheldon’s doing a Class-A dinner for Ann and Mitt at his Vegas home." (Cindy Adams)

"Jauretsi: Now that eBay will be adding the 'follow' button on collections, what types of things would you be interested in following on the site? Lucy Sykes: I am actually interested to follow most of the curators. My main interest is lifestyle, and I feel like there is a great wealth of knowledge from the very best experts [on eBay Today]. Tech is always new so that is a great interest which I am constantly learning about. I love the 1940s era, so I’ve have been inspired by furniture and art experts who are curating wonderful and rare things. I love anything to do with art and fashion books. I am also now following the Coffee Expert as I need my own espresso machine and I now know the 'Man.' J: In terms of your own personal work, what projects are you working on now or what can we expect to see soon? LS: I have my own consultancy, The Fashion Office. I consult for big brands and connect them to up-and-coming designers, from fashion to accessories. I have been working with the American Folk Art Museum on their upcoming show 'Folk Couture' with too many incredible designers to mention. I am consulting at RTR, where I had previously served as their Fashion Director for two years. My fav was a collaboration with Moschino photographed by Josh Jordan, which has newly been published on their website. I have a book in the works, which Alexandra Machinest (of Janklow Nesbit) is working with me on. Lastly, yes, I am working on a fashion pilot for the E! Network. But the biggest role is looking after all my three boys — two children, one husband." (Inside Source)

"Also last night under a heated tent at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, JH attended the Central Park Conservancy's second annual Autumn in Central Park. Nearly 500 guests celebrated the beauty of fall in the park with a delectable fall menu, elegant décor, and dancing under the stars. The event will raise vital funds that benefit the Conservancy's mission to restore and maintain the Park. The evening was sponsored by Van Cleef & Arpels and Valentino with models wearing both. Event Chairmen included Kitty and Tom Kempner, Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, Deborah Roberts and Al Roker, and Fiona and Eric Rudin. Angelo, Gordon & Co. was the Corporate Chair. Sarah Arison, Elizabeth Kurpis, Julia Loomis, and Julianna Simmons served as the Young Associate Chairmen." (NYSocialDiary)

"'It’s finally l’happening!' L’Wren Scott told us on Tuesday, shortly before co-hosting an event with Vanity Fair’s Senior West Coast Editor Krista Smith at the Chateau Marmont ...  Toasting Scott’s creative endeavors on the sixth-floor balcony of the Chateau was the designer’s partner of ten years, Mick Jagger. The legendary Rolling Stones frontman politely left the spotlight to Scott, and chatted with guests high above the Sunset Strip. Also present were Rashida Jones, Mad Men cast members Christina Hendricks and Jessica Paré, Kelly Lynch, Mitch Glazer, Michael B. Jordan, Judy Greer, and Ke$ha, who had just flown back to from Japan to help celebrate. 'He’s a god to me,' Ke$ha said of Jagger, 'and I am obsessed with L’Wren because she is so statuesque and stunning.' Remembering the first time she met the duo, the pop star said, 'I was [shooting] the cover of Self and heard that Mick was in the building. I ran out in my underwear and was like, ‘Hey!’' With a denim jacket slung over her shoulder and cotton candy-colored hair, Ke$ha waved off our compliment of her elaborate gold manicure, which featured a different metallic texture on each of her digits. 'In Japan, this is just normal. They pay so much attention to tiny detail and nail art. Every time I go there I have to spend at least five hours in the nail salon. You should see my toes.'" (VanityFair)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

""Globe-trotting Secretary of State John Kerry was on one of his rare stopovers in Washington, when I caught up with him the other day. 'I’m here a lot more than people think,' he said, smiling but sounding defensive, even before he sat down to begin our conversation in the sunny anteroom of his headquarters on the seventh floor of the State Department. Never mind the 245,000 miles and counting on the old Boeing 757, he insisted; he’s not permanently on an airplane, leaving Foggy Bottom to run on autopilot. Neither is he a cockeyed optimist, promising a Middle East peace that remains as elusive as ever. And yes, he is consulted by the White House—recent evidence of his exclusion from major decisions and policy reviews to the contrary. 'I can call the president anytime and see him anytime I need to,' he told me in what amounted to his first extensive comments on the latest outbreak of second-guessing that has greeted his wide-ranging diplomatic forays. The secretary of state went on to dismiss the 'Washingtonian… political babble' that he is permanently cut out of the Obama loop, protested that 'I’m inured to all of that by now' and just generally told his critics in polite but insistent terms to pipe down. Certainly, there are plenty of critics to answer; everyone, it seems, is taking a swing at John Kerry these days. Just hours before our interview, his old friend and longtime Senate colleague John McCain had called him a 'human wrecking ball,' an insult apparently aimed at the secretary’s penchant for careening around the globe on person-to-person diplomatic missions. Not long before that, the French foreign minister publicly torched his Iran nuclear deal, calling it a 'fool’s bargain,' while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted it as 'the deal of the century'—for the Iranians. And then there was a scathing column by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post, mocking Kerry for living in a 'dream world' of his own making, a 'delusional' bubble where peace is really possible in the Middle East, the Russians are actually trying to help us end the war in Syria and the Egyptian generals who overthrew an elected government didn’t in fact carry out a coup. Clearly, the harsh words sting, especially at a moment when Kerry has so many diplomatic balls in the air that it’s almost impossible to say whether he’ll end up looking like a negotiating genius—or a secretary with a bad case of overreach." (Politico)

"As Washington was comprehensively transfixed over the past couple weeks with the epic failure of the Obamacare launch, something very interesting was happening in the Senate. With little fuss or fanfare, social conservatives lost their once-iron grip on the modern Republican Party. Up for consideration was legislation called ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A high priority of the LGBT community for years, ENDA has the support of President Obama and the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats.But that and $4.50 will get you a breakfast panini and a medium coffee in the Senate, where 60 votes are necessary in the case of most legislation to end a filibuster and proceed to a floor vote. That means even with the unanimous support of Senate Democrats, which ENDA enjoys, you need seven Republicans to go along. And let’s just say that advancing the agenda of the Human Rights Campaign has not exactly been a priority for even a tiny minority of congressional Republicans, including the gay ones (and you know who you are). And yet—the cloture motion passed with room to spare. Seven Republicans (Kelly Ayotte, Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch, Dean Heller, Mark Kirk, Rob Portman, and Pat Toomey) joined 52 Democrats and the Senate’s two liberal independents to produce a 61-30 tally, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also in support of cloture but not voting. On final passage, the eight GOP senators were joined by two more, Jeff Flake and John McCain, yielding a convincing 64-32 result. On the House side, Speaker John Boehner has said he sees 'no basis or need' for the legislation. Most observers seem to be betting that he won’t bring it to the floor. Nevertheless, the political ramifications of what happened in the Senate are potentially far-reaching. The 'Defense of Marriage' era of the predominance of social conservatism in the GOP seems to be ending." (TNR)

"Morocco rarely figures into international news headlines these days, something of a virtue in this restive part of the world. The term Maghreb, which translates as 'land of the setting sun,' eventually came to denote a stretch of land starting in the Western Sahara and running through the Atlas Mountains and ending before the Nile River Valley, encompassing modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. However, the Maghreb originally meant the lands that define Morocco, where the setting sun marked the Western frontier of the Islamic empire. This evening in Tangier, I watch as ribbons of intense red and orange weave through plum-tinted clouds and settle behind the mountains on the Spanish coastline. Those mountains that almost seem a stone's throw away are where a Moroccan general, Tariq ibn Ziyad, massed his troops for a conquest ordered by the sixth Umayyad caliph in the early 8th century to expand the frontier of the caliphate to theIberian Peninsula. Jebel al Tariq, Arabic for 'the mountain of Tariq,' eventually came to be known as Gibraltar, the highly strategic narrow strait where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean meet. When the light is just right, you can see cerulean waters of the Mediterranean sharply contrasting with the dark moody waters of the Atlantic in a strategic aqua-hued borderland. Tangier and the Spanish-controlled city of Ceuta slightly to the east are the closest Africa gets to Europe. Consequently, this prized tip of the Maghreb was rarely held by Morocco's local inhabitants, who were too weak and outnumbered to compete effectively with the seafaring powers of the Mediterranean that were more interested in building trading outposts en route to Iberia than in venturing into the Maghrebi hinterland. But Morocco is also much more than its coastline. The country is defined by its mountainous spine, flanked by the coastline to the north and the Sahara Desert to its south. The Atlas chain starts south of Marrakech and runs northeast into Algeria, breaking only at the Taza Gap, a narrow access point to the Atlantic. The highlands are inhabited by Morocco's local natives, given the name Berbers by Greeks and Romans who regarded them as "barbari," Greek for 'barbarians,' who refused to adapt to their ways. In contrast, Berbers often use the term "Imazighen," which translates as "freemen," to describe their tribal community that is defined by their fighting prowess and raw, independent spirit. Stuck between entrenched and defiant Berbers in the mountains and a coastline that frequently fell prey to the Europeans, early Muslim settlers focused on the plains and mountain passages in the interior, where the ancient cities of Fez and Marrakech developed as the political and cultural hubs of the Maghreb and linked trans-Saharan trade with maritime commerce in the Mediterranean." (STRATFOR)

"My lunch was canceled and so I did not have to leave the house, except to walk the dogs, and I spent the day at my desk. Sometimes on days like this I don’t get very much done. This happened to me last Friday also. I always think I should be doing something constructive if I’m not working (or sleeping), so on that day I polished and shined six pairs of shoe. Accomplishment/ satisfaction. And I went back to my book that I’ve been reading a few pages at a time -- whenever I have had a moment -- for the past two weeks: Guy de Rothschild’s memoir “The Whims of Fortune.” I’ve written about this before and I’ll do it again until I can tell you why it keeps my interest despite my absence from it. Baron de Rothschild led a life far from my personal experience, and yet he brings us all together in describing his rarefied experience. He lived to his ninety-third year, so his world view covered the 20th century and its trials and wonders. I’ve just finished the part that took place during the Second World War when Nazi Germany invaded Paris and everyone’s life changed instantly, even if they didn’t notice. As a Jew, and as a Frenchman, he and his family were directly affected by the horror. Many had it far worse than he did, including relatives of his, but he’s always levelheaded in his reflections, and so we get a direct, hard look at the circumstances surrounding everybody." (NYSocialDiary)

For Maria Bartiromo, 20 years at CNBC was enough. We don’t know yet where on Fox Business she will be anchoring, but we do know the move, announced earlier today, will re-unite her with many of her former CNBC colleagues, including: Liz Claman joined FBN just after it launched in Oct. 2007. Charlie Gasparino joined in Feb. 2010. Dennis Kneale followed 8 months later. Melissa Francis made the move in June 2012 Neil Cavuto worked for CNBC in the 1990s, and joined Roger Ailes at the launch of Fox News Channel in 1996. Since the launch of FBN in 2007, Cavuto has anchored a show on each of the networks." (TVNewser)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Recent defections of talent from the New York Times — Nate Silver, David Pogue, Jeff Zeleny, Richard Berke, Brian Stelter, Matt Bai, et al. — have unjelled the media firmament, according to Politico media columnist Dylan Byers. In a piece this week, Byers called the departures 'a brain drain,' 'a sucker punch to staff morale,' and an opportunity for the paper to come 'face to face with a harsh reality' that in the new media age, its star journalists can no longer be satisfied by the '‘aura’ of the newspaper of record.' In the same day’s Huffington Post, Michael Calderone had the paper fretting about its 'retention rate,' adding the names of Don Van Natta Jr., Lisa Tozzi, Judy Battista, Howard Beck, and Eric Wilson to the list of departees. The Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple neutered Byers’s observation by noting that if anybody is suffering a brain drain, it’s Politico, shifting the discussion from the-Times-ain’t-the-ultimate-destination-it-once-was of Byers to the more durable assertion by Wemple that retaining-good-people-has-never-been-easy-for-any-outlet-and-it-ain’t-getting-easier. My view comports more closely to Wemple’s, but that doesn’t mean Byers is full of it. The Times departures mean something. But what? The exodus of accomplished Times reporters to television has been going on for so long that the exits of Jeff Zeleny to ABC News earlier this year and Brian Stelter to CNN this week barely deserve our notice. For as long as broadcasters have been flush, they’ve had their pick of New York Times newsroom stars." (Reuters)

"Glamour, while not traditionally a fashion book, has been getting a lot of attention lately as Anna Wintour gives it a look-over in her expanded role as Condé Nast artistic director. Wintour has already replaced editors at Lucky and Condé Nast Traveler. Jillian Davison was hired as Glamour’s fashion director, replacing Anne Christensen who resigned to go freelance, amid speculation that she might have been given a nudge toward the door by Wintour and her art director, Raul Martinez, as they revamped the fashion look. Davison was the creative director of Vogue Australia, and earlier in her career had freelanced at Teen Vogue as well as Harper’s Bazaar in the United States and Australia. '[Glamour Editor-in-Chief] Cindi [Leive] made the announcement, but it sure seems to have the fingerprints of Anna all over it,' said one source." (NYPost)

"Profit or non-profit? Definitely for-profit! First, because the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's track record (see this the New Inquiry article) shows a fierce appetite for profitable ventures. And second, because there no such thing as a free and independent media press without a strong business side: financial vulnerability is journalism's worst enemy, while profit breeds scalability. How to make money, then, with a narrow niche such as investigative journalism? Can Omidyar's venture move beyond the cross-subsidy system that powered legacy media for decades? This weekend, in a FT.com interview, Henry Blodget justified the deluge of eye-grabbing headlines spread over Business Insider by saying 'The dining and motoring sections pay for the Iraq bureau' For this, Omidyar can look at a wide set of choices: he could devise click-driven contents built on the proven high volume/cheap ads equation. Or he could opt for what I'll call the Porsche Model, one in which the most visible activity (in this case sports car manufacturing) brings only a marginal contribution to the P&L when compared to its financial activities: in 2009, Porsche made $1bn (£620m) in profit from car sales and almost $7bn betting on Volkswagen stock. More realistically, an endowment-like model sounds natural for a deep-pocketed investor like Omidyar. Most US universities are doing fine with that model: a large sum of money, the endowment, is invested and produces enough interest to run operations. One sure thing: if he really wants to go against big corporations and finance, to shield it from pressure, Omidyar should keep its business model disconnected from its editorial operation.
Investigative journalism is a field in which the subscription model can work. In France, the website Mediapart offers a credible example." (TheGuardian)

"Monday, November 18, 2013. Rainy, foggy, Sunday in New York with the temperature hovering damply around 50. A good day to stay indoors and read a good book. Or the FT. Which, speaking of, Simon Schama, the historian, wrote a very good piece on the political career of John F. Kennedy who was murdered in Dallas by an assassin, or assassins, fifty years ago this Wednesday.The Assassination was such a trauma for the nation including those close to the slain President that the event has been shrouded in speculation ever since. The suddenness of his departure did the same to his political legacy. Schama tries to put it in some perspective in an effort to address the man himself. All public figures are never what they seem much of the time. Great public exposure through media or public appearances (speechmaking, etc.) lends itself to illusion and even delusion. We believe we know them, or know what they’re like. And what they like. So it was with John F. Kennedy whose image and stature was greatly assisted by the presence of his beautiful young wife Jackie and their two beautiful children. When he came to the office, he had succeeded a very popular and highly admired man, a military hero, a two term President, whose only deterrent was his age (he was 70; JFK was 43)." (NYSocialDiary)

"'There are job functions that wouldn’t apply to most people.' Last month we talked to Amy, a longtime personal assistant who currently works for, among others, a Very Famous Writer. She talked about some of the weird things that come up when you’re handling large sums of other people’s money, what it means to get to 401(k) land, and how making a living as an artist is hard even when you’re on top of the creative heap. Some readers wanted to hear more about the things Amy does on a day-to-day basis, so here’s a closer look at her job. How do you explain what you do? You say the word 'personal assistant' and even to people who do that for a living, that could mean such a range of things. It could be a really lowly sort of coffee-fetcher, run-this-down-to-Kinkos sort of position, or it could be you have the keys to the castle and you are in control of everybody’s move and the whole production of the life of the people that you’re working for. There’s a huge range. So I find that I have to break it down. Whatever my elevator pitch is, it’s like: I work for people with way too much money—I run their lives, I run their work, I manage their house.Most people don’t know why you would need a role filled—why somebody would need someone like me in their life. It’s this life that my clients are living where they have multiple people on staff and they have multiple construction projects or multiple homes or a private plane, or whatever. They’re thinking of buying a yacht!—or maybe they’ll just rent one, and they have to give that task to somebody, to figure out which is better value. There are job functions that wouldn’t apply to most people ..." (TheBillfold)

Happy Birthday Paula Froelich

Last night one of my favorite journalists, the great Paula Froelich celebrated her birthday at Bar Nana in the Meatpacking District. An amazing boozy affair with lots of cake. Paula just got back from Egypt, just in time to celebrate. It was a clusterfuck of boldface names and American gossip royalty. Among the boldfacers: Richard Johnson, Duff, Richie Notar, Caroline Waxler, Katherine and Alice Finnerty, Tracy Westmoreland, George Gurley, Emily Smith and Jo Piazza.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"A CRISIS is brewing in America’s relations with Israel. The American public—though strongly pro-Israel—seems either not to have noticed or not to care much. In the coming days and months America and other world powers must decide whether a credible agreement can be reached to slow or halt Iran’s nuclear programme, in exchange for a lifting of crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. A final deal is months away at best. Israel has already launched a ferocious, pre-emptive verbal assault—aimed squarely at public opinion in America—after just two days of talks in Geneva about an interim agreement to slow Iran’s nuclear work for a few months, aimed at buying time for negotiations on a larger deal. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has not held back. In a speech to thousands of Jewish-Americans in Jerusalem on November 10th he more or less called the American president and his envoys naive to the point of imperilling Israel’s survival. Mr Netanyahu accused the negotiators in Geneva, including John Kerry, the secretary of state, of proposing “a bad and dangerous deal' that would start to unravel sanctions even as Iran retained its capacity to enrich enough fissile material to menace Israel’s survival. America would be next, once Iran perfected long-range missiles, he warned. 'Coming to a theatre near you. Do you want that?' he growled. 'Well, do something about it.' Mr Kerry retorted that Barack Obama’s government understands where America’s interests and those of its allies such as Israel lie. He snapped: 'We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid.' The ground might seem set for a familiar American political showdown in which Republicans denounce Democrats for coddling America’s enemies while cold-shouldering its allies. Yet, with a few exceptions, this is not happening." (Economist)

"Everyone’s doing it, so I might as well jump in also. After all, I knew so many of the people involved, including JFK and his widow Jackie, and—sorry for the name-drop—even actor Rob Lowe, who plays the slain president in the film that’s coming out for the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. I only met Senator John Kennedy once—a year before he became president—at a party thrown by Alice Topping, a society dame of the time. The first and lasting impression was of his charisma and good looks. He was 42, the room was full of beautiful women, but he did take a minute or two to ask me about school and my plans for the future. It was not any different than most politicians’ chatter, but with a difference. None of that greasy Bill Clinton stuff, more man-to-man chitchat with lots of jokes about our wandering eyes. I never saw him in person again." (Taki)

"Behold the swirl. At the brunch last Sunday at Christie’s auction house for bidders and attendees of this past Tuesday’s history-making sale of postwar and contemporary art, hundreds of well-dressed art lovers sipped Champagne and nibbled party food while standing just inches from canvases, some of them valued for millions of dollars. Waiters wandered through the galleries bearing six-foot-long poles from which were suspended shelves heavy with Bloody Marys or dishes of scrambled eggs; generating the din of French and Russian and Japanese well-wishing were enough age-inappropriate couples to suggest that the event’s unannounced theme was Father-Daughter. I queued up for the very popular 'deconstructed bagel-and-lox with panzanella salad' station, where I fell into conversation with a friendly middle-aged art dealer in a leather jacket.  'Are you having fun?' he asked me. 'I am,' I said. 'But for a group that can supposedly pony up a few million dollars to buy art, these folks are very aggressive in a buffet line.' Last week, I attended the record-breaking auctions of modern art at Christie’s ($691.5 million) and Sotheby’s ($380.6 million), as well as their previews. Here, amid a scrum of Euro-kissing and plastic surgery Expressionism and many, many British men in skinny navy blue suits, I watched as titans of commerce like the talent agent Michael Ovitz, the financier Donald B. Marron, the real estate developer Aby Rosen and the Miami collectors Don and Mera Rubell tried to gussy up their living room walls." (NYTimes)

"It was a bubble that first brought Blodget fame, and a bust that brought disaster. In 1998, as an internet analyst for CIBC Oppenheimer, he made the outlandish call that Amazon’s share price would rise from $242 to $400 within 12 months. He was wrong only in the timing: the stock passed his target in three weeks. Blodget, soon hired by Merrill Lynch, came to personify Wall Street’s dotcom-era bullishness and, when the good times came to a jarring end, he became a focus for those seeking someone to blame. Eliot Spitzer, then New York’s attorney-general, targeted him in an investigation into conflicts of interest and, in 2003, Blodget was barred from Wall Street as part of a settlement of civil fraud allegations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. When we meet it is a decade on from Blodget’s personal crash and five years from the fall of Lehman Brothers. Investment bankers have been jostling to bring Twitter to market and Spitzer, disgraced in a 2008 prostitution scandal, has lost his bid to be elected New York City’s comptroller. I ask if Blodget, who still wears the white shirt and suit trousers of Wall Street, voted for Spitzer. 'I did,' he says, dipping some bread in a dish of olive oil: 'One of the people on my team thought I was insane [but] I never felt like it was personal against me.' Blodget and Spitzer followed the same route back to public view after they fell, both writing for Slate. Blodget went on to another form of financial analysis with Business Insider, launched in 2007." (FT)

"As C. K. Dexter DeHaven in the 1956 film High Society, Bing Crosby could have well-played his own persona — someone who was comfortable being rich and famous. Crosby was a friend, business partner, and golf pal of Palm Beacher and Oklahoma oil tycoon George Coleman. During the 1960s, the popular singer-actor-golfer became a frequent guest at the Seminole Club golf course and some of Palm Beach’s very special gatherings. And whether having drinks and dinner with Bing and Kathy Crosby, poolside lunch with Harry and Ruth du Pont in Boca Grande, or brunch with her lifelong friend Gertrude Legendre on the patio of the lakeside log cabin at Medway Plantation,  Ellen Ordway had her camera loaded with unlimited rolls of film. Ellen delighted in photographing her swell well-known friends. However, probably even more, she enjoyed snapping her dogs, shooting the lions and tigers at Lion Country Safari, and recording every step and splash of her grands and great-grands. Her photograph albums can now be appreciated by her great-great grandchildren who only need to turn the pages of her remarkable photographic odyssey to rediscover that now lost treasure, the Great American Family. Here is a look back at life during the era of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society." (NYSocialDiary)

 

"Naked but for the towel around his waist, a man of a certain age sat by himself, bent slightly forward as if praying, in a corner of the sauna at a gym in central Rome. I had not met this man before, but as I entered the sauna, I thought I recognized him from photographs. He looked like a priest with whom I’d corresponded after mutual friends put us in touch, a man I had wanted to consult about gay clerics in the Vatican Curia. My friends told me that this priest was gay, politically savvy, and well connected to the gay Church hierarchy in Rome. But this couldn’t be that priest. He had told me that he’d be away and couldn’t meet. Yet as I looked at the man more closely, I saw that it was definitely him. When we were alone, I spoke his name, telling him mine. 'I thought you were out of the country,' I said. 'How lucky for me: you’re here!' Startled, the priest talked fast. Yes, his plans had changed, he said, but he was leaving again the next day and would return only after I was gone.
During the previous few days, I had heard a lot about this man. I had heard that he is a gossip, a social operator whose calendar is a blur of drinks and dinners with cardinals and archbishops, principessas and personal trainers. Supposedly, he loves to dish male colleagues with campy female nicknames. But I would never have the experience firsthand. The priest was embarrassed: to have been chanced upon at this place; to have had his small evasions revealed. The encounter was awkward. No, he did not wish to discuss the subject I was interested in. No, he did not think the subject worthwhile. These things he made clear. We left the sauna and, after further conversation, civil but stilted, went our separate ways. I could understand his discomfort. But in Rome these days the topic of gay priests in the upper reaches of the Holy See is hard to avoid. In February of this year, not long before the College of Cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave to choose the 266th Pope, the largest Italian daily newspaper, La Repubblica, reported that a 'gay lobby'—a more or less unified cabal of homosexual power brokers—might be operating inside the Vatican. According to the newspaper, the possible existence of this gay lobby was among the many secrets described in a two-volume, 300-page report bound in red and presented to Pope Benedict XVI by three cardinals he had appointed to investigate the affair known as 'VatiLeaks.' That scandal, which raised fresh suspicions of endemic corruption within the Curia, had broken the previous year after Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, made off with some of Benedict’s private papers and leaked them to the press." (VanityFair)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

 

 

"We’re three years from the next presidential election, and Hillary Clinton is, once again, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Congressional Republicans have spent months investigating her like she already resides in the White House. The New York Times has its own dedicated Clinton correspondent, whose job it is to chronicle everything from Hillary’s summer accommodations ('CLINTONS FIND A NEW PLACE TO VACATION IN THE HAMPTONS') to her distinct style of buckraking ('IN CLINTON FUNDRAISING, EXPECT A FULL EMBRACE'). There is a feature-length Hillary biopic in the works, and a well-funded super PAC—'Ready for Hillary'—bent on easing her way into the race. And then there is Clinton herself, who sounds increasingly candidential. Since leaving the State Department, Clinton has already delivered meaty, headline-grabbing orations on voting rights and Syria. The last time Clinton ran, of course, the issue was Iraq and the gleaming new mug was Barack Obama’s. This time the debate will be about the power of America’s wealthiest. And, far more than with foreign policy, which most Democrats agreed on by 2008, this disagreement will cut to the very core of the party: what it stands for and who it represents.On one side is a majority of Democratic voters, who are angrier, more disaffected, and altogether more populist than they’ve been in years. They are more attuned to income inequality than before the Obama presidency and more supportive of Social Security and Medicare.1 They’ve grown fonder of regulation and more skeptical of big business.2 A recent Pew poll showed that voters under 30—who skew overwhelmingly Democratic—view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Above all, Democrats are increasingly hostile to Wall Street and believe the government should rein it in. On the other side is a group of Democratic elites associated with the Clinton era who, though they may have moved somewhat leftward in response to the recession—happily supporting economic stimulus and generous unemployment benefits—still fundamentally believe the economy functions best with a large, powerful, highly complex financial sector. Many members of this group have either made or raised enormous amounts of cash on Wall Street. They were deeply influential in limiting the reach of Dodd-Frank, the financial reform measure Obama signed in July of 2010 ... Which brings us to the probable face of the insurgency. In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren." (TNR)

 

 

"For everyone but the top 1 percent of earners, the American economy is broken. Since the 1980s, there has been a widening disconnect between the lives lived by ordinary Americans and the statistics that say our prosperity is growing. Despite the setback of the Great Recession, the U.S. economy more than doubled in size during the last three decades while middle-class incomes and buying power have stagnated. Great fortunes were made while many baby boomers lost their retirement savings. Corporate profits reached record highs while social mobility reached record lows, lagging behind other developed countries. For too many families, the American Dream is becoming more a historical memory than an achievable reality. These facts don’t just highlight the issues of inequality and the growing power of a plutocracy. They should also force us to ask a deeper set of questions about how our economy works—and, crucially, about how we assess and measure the very idea of economic progress. How can it be that great wealth is created on Wall Street with products like credit-default swaps that destroyed the wealth of ordinary Americans—and yet we count this activity as growth? Likewise, fortunes are made manufacturing food products that make Americans fatter, sicker, and shorter-lived. And yet we count this as growth too—including the massive extra costs of health care. Global warming creates more frequent hurricanes, which destroy cities and lives. Yet the economic activity to repair the damage ends up getting counted as growth as well. Our economic policy discussions are nearly always focused on making us wealthier and on generating the economic growth to accomplish that. Great debates rage about whether to raise or lower interest rates, or increase or decrease regulation, and our political system has been paralyzed by a bitter ideological struggle over the budget. But there is too little debate about what it is all for. Hardly anyone ever asks: What kind of growth do we want? What does 'wealth' mean? And what will it do for our lives?" (Democracy)

"I suppose the secret of death is to choose not to expire on the same day as famous people. I read in Lapham’s Quarterly that JFK, C. S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley all met with the man in the white suit on November 22nd, 1963. John Jay Mortimer, a friend of very long standing, died last week and I attended his funeral in Tuxedo Park, the seat of his very old and fine family. After his daughter Minnie gave the reading, Lewis Lapham, the renowned editor of Harper’s and now Lapham’s Quarterly, spoke in a quiet and unemotional tone about his old friend ... And now it’s my turn. John Jay Mortimer’s innocence was matched by his kindness and inability to ever say a bad word about anyone. If malice is a greater magnifying glass than kindness, there has never been a microscope invented to detect a malicious thought or act where John Jay was concerned. He observed the world and human nature like a scientist: with curiosity, kindness, and most of all understanding. There is an aphorism that says a man is sometimes extolled to the skies for the very thing that occasioned his misfortune. In John Jay’s case, there was no misfortune. He simply refused to participate in vulture capitalism. The wise men of Wall Street might cackle and label him a loser, but they’re fat and ugly and know only the price of things but never their value. On a beautiful autumn day, north of the city with nature at her finest, John Jay was laid to rest by his family and surrounded by friends who know all about values. I waited until the end to pay my respects to his widow, Senga. Being Greek, I almost shed a tear because John Jay and I had pursued her at the same time and he had won hands down, but I managed not to cry. A great lunch followed at Gigi and Averell Mortimer’s house nearby, a house that reflected the gentility and grace of an era long gone with the wind but one that shows life can still be lived well. The right to be called a gentleman used to be a patent of nobility. John Jay inherited these values, but he would have acquired them even if he had been a dustman’s son. He was, as I said, the perfect definition of a gent, which is  'one who never inflicted pain or offended unintentionally.' " (Taki)

"I went to lunch at Swifty’s which was jammed. At a table nearby Lisa Schiff was being feted for her birthday (they brought in a cake with ONE candle; she made a wish and blew it out). I ran into the legendary jazz piano virtuoso (I can’t say enough), Miss Barbara Carroll who told me she and Mark Stroock got married six months ago. The second time around, folks. Barbara is appearing at Birdland this coming Saturday. Doors open at 5 PM ... The city wasn’t quiet last night either. Over at the Mandarin Oriental Pratt Institute was hosting its annual Scholarship Benefit Honoring Icons of Art and Design. This is a fashionable dinner. They honored David Easton, an alumnus and a renowned interior designer; the legendary Pete Hamill; Margaret Russell, the Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest; and James Turrell the contemporary artist. Great New York crowd including Kurt Anderson, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel; David Walentas, Margot Bingham (“Boardwalk Empire”), Mario Buatta, Juan Montoya, Judy Collins, Richard Meier, Carmen Marc Vlavo, Jeffrey Banks (Pratt alumnus also); Martha Stewart, David Rockwell, Ted Allen.While up on Park Avenue and 68th Street, at the Council on Foreign Relations, the old Harold Pratt mansion, The American Friends of Blerancourt (you read about it here yesterday) hosted their black tie dinner to honor The Honorable Craig R. Stapleton, former American Ambassador to France. The piece de resistance: Chef Daniel Boulud personal prepared the dinner." (NYSocialDiary)

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"As Xi prepares his 10-year plan, China has reached the end of the economic supercycle set in motion by Deng. Public criticism of officials and thus of the Party is rampant, and China's military appears much more capable than it actually is, putting China is a potentially dangerous situation. Once again the United States is looking at China as a power perhaps to contain or at least constrain. China's neighbors seem eager for Washington's assistance to counterbalance Beijing's influence, and long-dormant Japan is awakening once again. Xi may not have to rebuild a fractured Party or state as Deng did, but in some ways he faces the same fundamental challenge: redirecting and redefining China. China can no longer follow the path it has in previous decades. Deng emerged as China's paramount leader out of the struggles and chaos of the Gang of Four era and the Cultural Revolution. He redefined what China was and where China was going, not out of a desire to try something different or an infatuation with "Western" economic models but out of a fundamental need to change course. Whether Xi wants it to be or not, China is at another crossroads. He has little choice but to make consequential decisions, lest he leave China scrambling from one quick fix to another at the expense of long-term opportunities." (STRATFOR)

"Last night was the annual Library Lions dinner at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. This is always a beautiful evening, black tie, and honoring distinguished, often literary members of the community or international community. This year’s honorees were Mayor Michael Bloomberg, authors; Katherine Boo, Junot Diaz, Marilynne Robinson and the very literate and witty Stephen Sondheim, who also has a couple of books out ...This now traditional annual fundraiser for the Library is one of the most 'important' events on the autumn social calendar ...The Library is a very prestigious philanthropy in New York, as it is in many other major metropolitan cities, and it attracts a distinctive and at times distinguished crowd. Brooke Astor, you might remember, gave many millions to the Library before she died. Bill Blass left them at least ten million. Mr. Schwarzman provided a $100 million contribution to what Anthony Marx referred to (as have many others) as “the greatest library in the world.” (NYSocialDiary)



"When a huge balloon version of KAWS' celebrated figure 'COMPANION' floated down Fifth Avenue in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year, it seemed that surely that was as big as the artist and toy maker could get. Previously, his 'COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH),' a massive fiberglass sculpture, had toured from Hong Kong to Europe to the Standard Hotel in New York. But now KAWS has two major museum shows running -- at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas -- and this month he'll have a pair of solo exhibitions opening in New York: one at French maverick dealer Emmanuel Perrotin's new fancy uptown gallery, and the other at legendary power-player Mary Boone's Chelsea gallery. And if you were one of the 10 million people who tuned into August's MTV Video Music Awards, you saw Kaws take over the stage of the Barclays Center with his giant version of the MTV moon man, in what was one of the grandest co-branding opportunities afforded any visual artist. This is undeniably the year of Kaws. But if his work is omnipresent, from the bastions of high art to the hipster nooks and crannies where his apparel and toys are collected and coveted at dizzying prices, KAWS, the man, is far less visible." (Papermag)

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"Punctuality mattered to Romney. Christie’s lateness bugged him. Mitt also cared about fitness and was prone to poke fun at those who didn’t. ('Oh, there’s your date for tonight,' he would say to male members of his traveling crew when they spied a chunky lady on the street.) Romney marveled at Christie’s girth, his difficulties in making his way down the narrow aisle of the campaign bus. Watching a video of Christie without his suit jacket on, Romney cackled to his aides, 'Guys! Look at that!' ... Early Sunday morning, July 15, Romney got on a conference call with the Boston brain trust to talk about the veepstakes. The overwhelming consensus was for Ryan. He was young, telegenic, Irish Catholic, with blue collar appeal, and he might put his state in play. He would rouse the base and sharpen the policy contrast with Obama. While the Ryan budget and Medicare plan were political cons, Romney was half pregnant with them anyway—so why not marry their most articulate defender? Two of Mitt’s closest confidants, former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt and his former business partner Bob White argued that Mitt should pick the best governing partner; privately, both expressed support for Ryan. Look, Mitt, you’ve never worked in Washington, Leavitt said. Having someone who can swing a bat for you on the Hill and knows the budget inside out makes a lot of sense. But Stevens remained unconvinced about Ryan and adamantly in favor of Christie. Shielded from the crash vet and what it was turning up, Romney’s chief strategist was making a purely political argument—one that contradicted the considered judgment of virtually everyone else on whom Mitt relied for advice. Such was the potency of the Romney-Stevens bond that Mitt kept Christie in the pack. Romney was somewhat shielded from the Pufferfish vet too, but he knew it wasn’t going smoothly. Myers informed him that a significant problem had not been solved: the severe limits on political donations from the financial community that would have applied to a Romney-Christie ticket under New Jersey’s strict pay-to-play regulations which limited the amounts potential donors employed by financial services firms who did business with the state could contribute. Romney’s lawyers were still looking into the matter. Facing Obama’s formidable fundraising machine, it appeared that picking Christie could cost Romney a serious chunk of change. One possibility was that if Christie were picked as VP, Romney would no longer be able to raise money from many financial institutions for the rest of the campaign. Not great, but manageable, maybe. Another possibility was that Boston would have to return the cash it had already raised on the Street—­unacceptable. The attorneys had been exploring workarounds; none were watertight. The easiest solution would be for Christie to resign as governor if he got the nod. A few hours after the conference call, Romney phoned him to float that notion. 'Are there any circumstances in which you’d consider resigning to become the nominee?' Mitt asked. Christie asked for time to think it over. Romney said that his lawyers were still working on the pay-to-play conundrum. 'Why don’t you talk to your counsel and see what happens?' Christie said. Romney hung up the phone convinced by Christie’s reaction that resignation was not in the cards. (He was correct.)" (Time)

"Is The New Yorker responsible for Paul Ryan’s name on the 2012 Republican ticket?
According to an excerpt in Time magazine from Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s new book about the 2012 presidential election, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose Mr. Ryan as his running mate after reading a profile of the congressman in The New Yorker.

On the flight home from his July trip to England, Israel and Poland, Romney inhaled a long profile of Ryan in The New Yorker, which traced the Congressman’s ascendancy to the position of de facto intellectual and ideological leader of the GOP. Impressed by what he read, he gave the piece to [consultant Stuart] Stevens, who paged through it on the plane too. What do you think now? Romney asked.
“I can’t tell you who to fall in love with,” Stevens said with a shrug.

'Fussbudget: How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P' by Ryan Lizza ran in the August 6 issue of The New Yorker. Presumably, that was the lengthy profile (it was over 6,000 words) that ultimately decided who would be the 2012 Republican candidate for vice president. The Obama camp, which had extensively polled Mr. Romney’s Veep possibilities, was baffled by the decision." *(Observer)

"Who are we? Where did we come from, and where are we going? — Paul Gauguin I took that quote from Guy de Rothschild in his memoir, 'The Whims of Fortune' (Random House 1985) which I am slowly reading, and am enjoying as I move ahead. It appealed to me as much as it obviously appealed to him. His story reflects that and there is the possibility of wisdom in the offing.That quote resonated with me personally. Early last month, Quest magazine hosted a party with Wally Findlay Galleries to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Quest 400, a list inspired by the famous 400 list of Mrs. Astor back in the 19th century. It was an idea borne at the time out of necessity – I needed to come up with some kind of story of the month if I were going to get paid. However, it turned out to be something that obviously had legs. And it’s interesting on a couple of levels, besides. However. So Chris Meigher, the owner/publisher of Quest decided to mark the occasion. Not a bad idea; good for everybody -- anything that can last 20 years in New York media is its own champion. It was I who came up with the idea all those 20 years ago, but it was Mr. Meigher who guided its editorial and publishing shape and gave it its own legs. Wally Findlay Galleries came up with this extraordinary montage of Quest editorial history, and covered all the walls in the entire gallery with it." (NYSocialDiary)

"The heart-wrenching drama of JFK Jr.’s death was one of many private family moments Kennedy chronicled in thick, red journals reviewed by The Post. In mid-July 1999, the family was coming together at their Hyannis Port, Mass., retreat for the wedding of RFK Jr.’s sister Rory Kennedy, the youngest child of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. RFK Jr.’s wife had visited JFK Jr. and Bessette a week earlier and Bessette told her that her husband was 'so depressed' because he was fighting with his sister, Caroline, over furniture at the Martha’s Vineyard home that once belonged to their mother and had been left to them when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in 1994. JFK Jr. was in the process of buying out his sister’s share in the Red Gate Farm estate. Kennedy notes that 'John confided to me also about how hurt he was by Caroline’s actions.' (Last spring, Caroline Kennedy, who is about to be sworn in as the US ambassador to Japan, put part of the estate on the market for $45 million.) Kennedy also mentions JFK Jr.’s struggles with George magazine, which he co-founded, and the uproar caused when he invited Hustler publisher Larry Flynt to join his table at that year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Sen. Ted Kennedy had written nephew John a 'disappointed letter' about the decision and 'John was hurt by that because his family is so important.'
Kennedy doesn’t say anything about the marital troubles between John and Carolyn, strife that largely came to light after their deaths. 'Mary and I resolved we will go see them this weekend and spend a lot of time with them,' RFK Jr., now 59, wrote of his cousin, who was seven years his junior." (NYPost)

"According to journal entries written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (retrieved by his wife, Mary, who committed suicide last year in the midst of their divorce), the days following the plane crash that took the life of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette were marked with dramatic conflict between the two families, as the Kennedys did not feel Carolyn’s burial should be treated in the same manner as that of a Kennedy. Robert writes that, three days after the crash, Kennedy family members told Carolyn’s mother, Anne Freeman, that, while John Jr. would be buried in the family plot in Brookline, Mass., they 'could do with Carolyn as they pleased.' Ultimately, this ended as a moot point, as both John and Carolyn were cremated and buried at sea. But the diaries indicate that there were some very unpleasant interactions behind-the-scenes, particularly between Ed Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s husband, and Anne, as he 'bulled, bullied, bullied the shattered grieving mother,' according to the diaries. 'She says she wants to start an ‘I hate Ed’ club.' The diaries also reveal that Carolyn once confided to Mary that John Jr. and his sister Caroline had been quarreling about furniture in their Martha’s Vineyard estate which had belonged to their mother." (VanityFair)

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"The debate was only a few minutes old, and Barack Obama was already tanking. His opponent on this warm autumn night, a Massachusetts patrician with an impressive résumé, a chiseled jaw, and a staunch helmet of burnished hair, was an inferior political specimen by any conceivable measure. But with surprising fluency, verve, and even humor, Obama’s rival was putting points on the board. The president was not. Passive and passionless, he seemed barely present. It was Sunday, October 14, 2012, and Obama was bunkered two levels below the lobby of the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia. In a blue blazer, khaki pants, and an open-necked shirt, he was squaring off in a mock debate against Massachusetts senator John Kerry, who was standing in for the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. The two men were in Williamsburg, along with the president’s team, to prepare Obama for his second televised confrontation with Romney, 48 hours away, at Hofstra University in New York. It was an event to which few had given much thought. Until the debacle in Denver, that is.The debate in the Mile High City eleven days earlier had jolted a race that for many months had been hard fought but remarkably stable. From the moment in May that Romney emerged victorious from the most volatile and unpredictable Republican-nomination contest in many moons, Obama had held a narrow yet consistent lead. But after Romney mauled the president in Denver, the wind and weather of the campaign shifted in something like a heartbeat. The challenger was surging. The polls were tightening. Republicans were pulsating with renewed hope. Democrats were rending their garments and collapsing on their fainting couches.Obama was nowhere in the vicinity of panic. 'You ever known me to lose two in a row?' he said to friends to calm their nerves." (NYMag)

 

 

"London is now essentially a tax haven, and New York is where the smart money is invested into high-end real estate that benefits from tax breaks for the very, very rich. The whole southern end of Central Park will soon be blocked off by giant glass towers of empty, super-luxurious apartments bought by small men from the East with very large bank accounts. Some of them can even be described as honest, although I wouldn’t go as far as that. On Park Avenue and 56th Street, a man by the name of Harry Macklowe is putting up one of the tallest buildings in the city, as outrageous an act as sticking a McDonald’s next to St. Paul’s Cathedral. He got permission to do it from the Bloomberg administration, which is a bit like asking Ali Baba’s forty thieves permission to steal a camel. More than fifty years ago Macklowe used to get on my nerves because he was big but would not go out for sports when we were in boarding school. In fact he was a wiseguy—smart in class, quick with his mouth, but cowardly on the field. He has gone broke a few times—which does not mean he ever lost money—and is now doing to Park Avenue what that other horror, Charles Clore, did to it a long time ago when he put up the colossus that was then called the Pan Am Building over Grand Central and closed the beautiful vista one had all the way down to the Statue of Liberty from uptown. Well, ugly people build ugly things, and there are some very ugly buildings going up as I write." (Taki)

 

"Meanwhile, yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday was Michael’s. Traffic was practically at a standstill in midtown. Inside Michael’s it was a rolling roar (on the rivah…) of verbose excitement -- whatever they were were talking about. It was a real media day, pockets of public relations honchos, editors, publishers, producers, talking heads, non-stop. Around the room: Greg Buttle of ESPN Radio’s 'Buttlenews;' Sanford Stein, Diane Clehane, Michael’s very ownBrenda Starr with producer Joan Gelman and Robert Zimmerman.Diane interviews, takes it all down and they talk. And those two have had the experience in media to talk about it non-stop. I don’t know what they were talking about yesterday but I do know with those two – Zimm and Gelman (along with Diane), they were covered a lot of territory and had a few laughs amidst theSturm und Drang that’s about. At Table One, Bonnie Fuller ofHollywoodLife.com was in full swing with Gerry Byrne (Penske Media) and Dylan Lauren andAnn Dexter Jones, VH1’s Keshia Williams, Liza Persky of the the Wendy Williams Show, Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times,Carla Rube of PIX11, Julianne Wurm, Kathryn Fernandez, Marcia Parris and Kimberly Yarnell. That’s a business lunch and they were all cookin’." (NYSocialDiary)

"Once again, in October, Dan Loeb was lobbing grenades. This time his target was Sotheby’s, the international auction house, founded in 1744, that, along with chief rival Christie’s, owns the high-end business of reselling the art, real estate, jewelry, furniture, and other knickknacks of the wealthy. Loeb, the 51-year-old founder and principal owner of the hedge fund Third Point L.L.C., is famous, or rather infamous, for such bomb throwing. Packaging them in the form of letters to corporate C.E.O.’s (and sometimes to his hedge-fund colleagues), Loeb excoriates his targets publicly, not only for their professional performance but also often for their personal behavior. The idea is to humiliate the C.E.O.’s, causing them to quit or to get fired, so Loeb can unleash his strategies for 'unlocking shareholder value,' as they say in the hedge-fund world. Other hedge-funders send such letters, but most agree that Loeb’s are the nastiest and most florid. After Third Point had become the company’s largest shareholder, Loeb sent his Sotheby’s letter on October 2 to William F. Ruprecht, the widely respected chairman and chief executive officer, who has been at the auction house for 33 years. Arguing that Sotheby’s suffered from 'a lack of leadership and strategic vision at its highest levels,' Loeb then blasted Ruprecht for his 2012 compensation of $6.3 million, as well as any number of perks—memberships in 'elite country clubs,' car allowances, and tax-preparation services—that invoked 'the long-gone era of imperial CEOs.' He also relayed the 'story' of an 'extravagant lunch and dinner' at Blue Hill restaurant, in Manhattan, where, he said, Sotheby’s management 'feasted on organic delicacies and imbibed vintage wines at a cost to shareholders of multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.' Loeb demanded Ruprecht’s resignation and wrote that he would like to join the board “immediately' to begin a search for a new C.E.O. Incredibly, he wrote that he had already identified two internal candidates who could succeed Ruprecht and had begun 'informal discussions' with outside candidates as well." (VanityFair)